


Hard to See Through Tears

by Checkerbox



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, cecil makes dumb decisions when he's drunk and steve makes very tasty scones, or in other words the same au nightvale from my "no lowly mortal" fic, the city under the pin retrieval area in bowling lane 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-07
Updated: 2018-12-07
Packaged: 2019-09-13 17:12:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16896663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Checkerbox/pseuds/Checkerbox
Summary: Cecil is not good at taking bad news.Like hearing his best friend tell him that he's leaving, potentially forever, and he's never going to see him again.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have been getting some inspiration to write out another Batman fic or two lately, but then this story was sitting two-thirds finished in my drafts and I guess I'm a sucker for interpersonal drama (even if it probably didn't go down like this).
> 
> I also find something really charming about a world where Cecil chose to become friends with Steve instead of resenting him.

Night Vale was dark as Cecil and Steve walked along the road to Cecil's house from the station that evening, illuminated only by street lamps and the glow leaking out of people's homes through their windows. There were no stars, no moon, and no sun in the sky.

That was because they had no sky.

Cecil looked more haggard in the dim glow, eyes weary and glasses sliding down his nose. It had been a rough day. Anyone could know that from the broadcast, but they could also tell just by glancing at him. One of his interns had gotten pretty seriously injured on an assignment--for the first time since Cecil had taken over for Leonard Burton, in fact--and the poor man was taking it pretty hard.

Steve had been having a rough day himself.

Abby and Janice had not been as understanding as he'd hoped when he told them about the mission he had decided to undertake for the sake of their town. That was not to say they had not been understanding at all. Merely that it was not to his, admittedly naïve, expectations. And now he was beside one of his closest friends, shoulders shaking just a little at the thought of the shitshow that was likely to follow announcing his new calling to him.

"I've got some scotch in the cupboard if you want a glass before you go home." Cecil, seeing the tension but not knowing the cause, put up a slightly forced smile and unlocked the door to his place. "I always find a stiff drink is the best medicine for dealing with Abby when she's mad."

"I might take you up on that." He laughed, a weak and pitiful sound, and then shook his head. "But then it might make it harder to talk and I…need to do a lot of talking tonight."

"If you insist. …I might have some, though."

Cecil had been having "some" almost every night since the Change. Steve resisted his customary chiding. He only said, "I need to talk to you, too."

That only merited a glance back as the cupboard rattled while Cecil went hunting for his scotch. "Talk to me? --Not about today, Steve, please."

"Not that. --We can talk about that if you want, though?" His throat closed up a little for reasons he wasn't entirely sure of at that. Maybe because that was something he'd miss. Talking about things with Cecil. Even dark things. Or sad things. Cecil's grumbling "no" reminded him of where he was trying to direct the conversation. "It's about my fight with Abby. It's about…why…we had the fight."

Cecil paused, scotch glass on the counter but no booze as of yet. Expression now with a note of concern. "…I thought you said that was no big deal. Is there something wrong?"

"No." It was getting a little hard to meet his eyes now that there was so much concern in them. He could normally talk to Cecil about anything. But he hadn't breathed a word to him about this. "It's more a decision I'm making that she's not happy with. And I…can't imagine you'd be happy with it either."

"Steve don't beat around the bush, just tell me." There was a slight clank as the bottle of scotch joined the glass on the counter.

Steve winced. So Cecil _was_ determined to actually do some drinking tonight.

His brother-in-law caught the wince, and misinterpreted its meaning, forcing another smile onto his face and briefly abandoning his scotch to pat him on the back. "Why are you so nervous? Come on, that's not like you. I'm not gonna fly off the handle or anything, I promise."

Perhaps it was better to get it out before there was alcohol in his system.

"Cecil--" Get it out quick. Like ripping off a bandaid. "I'm going to be joining an investigatory team that's been formed by Mayor Winchell and the sheriff to leave Night Vale's outskirts and try to find a--a solution to our problem, our--our lack of sky."

Watching the expression on Cecil's face go slack as he processed the hastily spoken sentence made Steve's stomach clench.

"You're…what? --I'm sorry, _what_?"

It sounded like a mix between a genuine request for clarification and bewilderment. Steve coughed into his fist. "I'm…I mean it boils down to, I'm leaving Night Vale for a--for a while."

"Steve." Cecil grinned, and laughed. It was not the laugh of someone who had just heard a joke, but rather someone who really really wanted to _believe_ that what he just heard was a joke. "That's nonsense. Leaving? You can't _leave_. No one _leaves_ Night Vale anymore. Where would you even go?"

"That's just it! I don't know! None of us do. We don't know anything about the--the world we're in now, Cecil!" Cecil turned away in the middle of his speech, going to pour the scotch with grim determination. "I'm thinking--I'm thinking if we can go out there, see what lies beyond our new borders--maybe we'll find help! Maybe we'll find some way to--to lift this curse hanging over us!"

"Maybe you'll find a way to _get yourself killed_." Cecil took a big swig from his glass before continuing, voice low and--not angry. Not yet. Worried. "So what, you're just--you're just leaving? Just like that? _When_? No wonder Abby flipped out, _this is a perfectly reasonable thing to flip out over, Steve._ "

"I'm leaving in a week." That earned him an angry scoff as Cecil chugged down the contents of his glass, going to pour more for himself. "I would have said something sooner but I guess I was afraid you all would--would react pretty much the way you're doing now. But I know I can't put it off any longer."

"Thank you _so much_ for the consideration, Steve. I didn't realize you thought I was a **child**."

"Cecil, _please._ " It was just a snap reaction, he knew that. Cecil was full of those. Usually they were positive--an immediate liking to an antique in a store window, getting worked up over some kitten video on the internet…It wasn't fun being on the receiving end, not knowing how to redirect it. "I can't sit by anymore--not when the Change is actively causing our town harm. I can't stand watching this place wither without any lifeline. If you'd only--"

"Is this about those stupid grid patterns again?" It was the first time that Cecil had called them stupid instead of just responding with patient confusion. "You do realize that you're the _only one who sees them_ , right?"

Steve bristled. "Maybe that's because you aren't _looking hard enough_ \--"

"So this is what you think is _best_?" Now Cecil was shouting, teeth clenched, clutching his bottle of alcohol so hard in his hand as he poured again (when had he downed his second glass?) that Steve was genuinely concerned it might crack. "Abandoning your _family_? _Leaving Janice and Abby behind?_ "

Where Cecil had his sudden, intense emotional outbursts, Steve had mild flares of temper. He scowled, a mild expression on his face. "As opposed to you, going through your little show pretending everything is _okay_ like we're not slowly dying down here? What are _you_ doing?"

Cecil's face reddened with anger and alcohol, blustering. "My _little show_ is a _service to our community_ keeping people from feeling that everything is completely hopele--"

Like many things spoken in an argument, Steve's next words were something he would regret. "So you keep everyone complacent while they slowly die. I think _you're_ the one _failing your family Cecil._ " Cecil tried to interject but Steve didn't let him. "Maybe this is exactly the reason that Huntokar did this to us. Maybe she was tired of people taking their world for granted. Maybe it's people like _you_ who are the problem."

Cecil didn't say anything after that, not for a few seconds. His expression was hard to read but his body language was not, and as Steve felt his own anger beginning to cool even as he stood there, he saw his friend's boiling over.

" ** _Get the hell out of MY HOUSE STEVE CARLSBERG._** "

He had never heard that voice coming out of his brother in law's mouth before. Not at him. Suffused with rage and hurt and betrayal. This was a conversation they could pick up later, when Cecil didn't look so much like he was going to beat him senseless, so Steve quickly turned around to obey.

A scotch glass exploded on the wall next to him, and almost purely on instinct he sprinted the last few steps out the door and back onto the street to make the long journey home. Cecil did not follow him.

* * *

 

There was no good in being up after midnight. Earl knew this was sound advice and yet he made no effort to follow it, always desperately searching for something to keep him busy so he would have an excuse not to sleep. Roger was with his mother for the weekend, and he'd already finished the entire book of nonograms he'd bought from the drug store specifically to keep his brain occupied.

It was at this time, exhausted but a live wire, debating over whether or not it would be worth it to just lie in his bed, that his cell phone started to ring. An unbearable sound. He answered immediately.

"Earl."

His breathing momentarily stopped. "Cecil."

"Earl are you busy? I mean are you--" Cecil's voice was unmistakable; lovely, and-- _ordinarily--_ smooth. It had been weeks since he heard it speak his own name, and this time it wasn't the distantly professional tone that he had used at Tourniquet. "C-can we talk?"

"Cecil is everything okay?" He tried to keep his own voice even, a few deep breaths away from the receiver. "I heard the show today. Is the intern--"

"--Not about that. I don't want to talk about that." Said in a harried rush that easily conveyed it was a subject that he probably _should_ talk about. But Earl let it slide. "That's not--no. That's not it. --The doctors said he's going to be fine."

"Then what is it? --Good lord, you sound like a wreck."

"Can I come over?" His friend's voice was slurred a little from drink, that much was obvious even over the phone. If they still had gasoline in Night Vale Earl might have pressured him not to go driving in that state.

"You think you can make it over here?"

"I'm already outside your house."

Earl pulled open his curtains with a start to see one Cecil Palmer standing on his lawn, slightly hunched over and desperately clinging to his cellphone. When the light spilled out onto the grass Cecil looked up, blearily waving and then stumbling to the door.

He hung up, courteous enough not to point out he hadn’t actually told Cecil it was alright to come over. All he did was open the door and let him fall inside.

"What's going on?"

"I messed up." There was no evidence of tears on Cecil's cheeks but he spoke in hitching, gasping sobs nonetheless. There was the scent of scotch on his breath. "I had a--I had a fight with Steve."

"With Steve?" A completely inappropriate flare of jealousy tightened Earl's stomach. Steve and Cecil. The two of them had been practically inseparable since Abby had gotten married. Not that Earl and Cecil had really remained as close as they were as boys when they'd graduated--he personally blamed that trip to Europe for their separation--but it still hurt to see their friendship "replaced", as it were. "What could you two have possibly been fighting about?"

"It was stupid. I was _stupid_. I threw--I threw--" Cecil couldn't seem to finish the sentence, tottering further into the house. "I don't know _why_ I got so _mad_ , I--"

"Cecil did you cut your hand?" The wound had already stopped bleeding, but there was a pretty noticeable slice on his palm. Cecil jerked his hand away and in the process tripped into the couch cushions. Sitting down seemed like the best option for him so Earl made no move to help him up.

"Just picking up some-some glass. --I can hardly feel it now." He waved his arm a little clumsily, as though to dispel the topic. "I--I'm sorry I'm such a mess. I didn't know who else to go to, I knew I just di-didn't want to be alone--"

It felt as though Cecil had reached into Earl's chest and squeezed his heart at that. It was equal parts touching and unsettling. After all this time, when his friend had no one to turn to he went to him.

Earl took his place on the couch next to him. "Tell me what happened."

"Steve is leaving Night Vale." That was a surprise. That was the most…un-Steve Carlsberg-like thing that a man like that could do. "He just told me. I didn't take it well."

"…Yeah I guess you didn't." Earl put a hand on Cecil's shoulder, lightly rubbing. Cecil responded by leaning into his touch.

"He's--he's the person I'm closest to in this whole miserable town. I talk to him about everything. I talk to him more than I even talk to Abby. I don't know what I'm going to--to do about that. God, what if he hates me now?"

"I'm sure he doesn't hate you."

"Even if he doesn't, it doesn't make a difference. Soon he'll be gone and I won't have anyone."

"You have me." Earl didn't mean to sound so insistent at that, turning Cecil a little bit to look at him. "I'm still here for you, Cecil. You need only ask."

"After I froze you out?"

That gave him a little bit of pause. The guilt in his friend's eyes as he spoke. Earl had never thought of it as something Cecil did intentionally. Just something he had committed out of his own carelessness. That was a quality that Cecil was in abundance of. It hurt less to think of it that way. "You didn't freeze me out."

"I found out some things about myself in Europe." Cecil didn't pull away but he averted his eyes. "And I guess I--I felt like I'd changed so much I didn't know how to talk to you after that. So I ignored you. On purpose."

"--Well I don't care about that." That was a lie. He cared very much about that--in fact it was something he would probably have to process later, on his own, and come to terms with. But in this context it was not at the forefront of his mind. It wasn't what he was interested in. "You mean too much to me for that to keep me away. Don't you see?"

That seemed to make Cecil look even more miserable. No--that wasn't the intended response. "I threw a scotch glass at my best friend because I was angry at _myself_. You don't deserve to be in that position. No one does. I'm--"

Earl held Cecil's face in his hands, forcing him to look at him through the obvious drunken haze. "Stop it. Stop trying to dictate how I should feel about you. It's too late--I've already made up my mind."

Then he kissed him.

He knew, the moment he saw the bewilderment in Cecil's eyes, that it was a mistake. It was not at all what was expected of him, it was not what was _needed_ of him. Desperately he wracked his mind for some words of apology or explanation that would lessen the sting, make it right somehow--maybe even play that kiss off as some weird accident--but humiliation closed his throat.

And then his back was pressing against the arm of the couch, there was a tongue pushing past his lips, and his best friend since childhood was wildly and frantically tearing at the buttons on his shirt.

The suddenness of the change in position and the now heavy taste of alcohol in his mouth managed to keep him from succumbing completely, just barely managing to close his hands around Cecil's wrists. He had just enough time to pull back and catch Cecil's impatient glare before his neck was being assaulted with aggressive kisses. They felt nice. The protestations he had died on his lips, replaced only with a stuttered, weak, "If you're going to--uh--hah--maybe we should move to--"

"Too far away." Cecil's already low voice was practically a subsonic growl, slipping off his glasses and dropping them on the coffee table.

Earl resumed his attempt to stop Cecil's hands as they finished with his shirt, but found himself getting pinned instead. They hadn't wrestled since their Boy Scout days. The thought made him feel suddenly incredibly creepy, and he quickly banished it. "--Maybe you should have time to-- _Mmf_."         

It was what he wanted. It was all wrong, so completely wrong, not at all how it should have been, but it was _what he wanted_ and so he did what was natural at that point, and gave in.


	2. Chapter 2

There was something wrong when he woke up sprawled out on the couch and completely alone in the house.

A blanket had been hastily thrown over him, and his clothes gathered into a pile under the coffee table where Cecil's glasses still lay. Cecil's clothes, however, were nowhere to be found.

It did not take a genius to figure out what happened before he woke up that morning. His heart neatly climbed up into his esophagus as he quickly got dressed, picking up and folding the glasses into his pocket when he was finished. He darted out the door without so much as breakfast, glancing at the time. Cecil would be at the station. But the broadcast wouldn't start for a little while yet. Earl would have time to get there if he hurried.

The pounding of his feet on concrete matched the hammering of his pulse, the quickened pace and slight tax on his body helping to distract from the roiling emotions inside of him. Last night had been--a blur, really. He'd been so overwhelmed that it was more an experience than a distinct, clear memory. Though parts of it stuck out to him.

It had been good, but not in the way it should have been. There'd been a kind of fear in it too, a feeling that he'd made a mistake, that they were both breaking something important. In highschool, and a few times afterward, he had thought about ruining his friendship with Cecil in similar ways. It was just that he'd always assumed there would be a different sort of relationship at the end to replace it.

He still had a visitor's pass from the couple of times that he'd appeared on Cecil's show, waved it in front of the disinterested and lazy guard and whirled through the station trying to find the broadcasting booth where Cecil would be.

It didn't take him long. He still had a few minutes. Cecil's producer blinked at him, half standing as he pushed through to the actual booth and slammed the door shut, almost freezing solid when he was greeted with not the flustered warmth of intimacy but a bewildered, angry stare.

One of the station interns had a stack of papers in her hand. She'd been in the middle of saying something, but her mouth was shut now.

Earl rushed to summon his voice, Cecil getting there first.

"--Earl, what are you doing here, this is _where I work_ \--"

"You left your glasses at--" He quickly glanced over at the intern carrying what looked like a copy of the community calendar and then back at Cecil, mortified and staring not at him but the wall to the left. "--At the restaurant last night. I thought it best to return them to you before you strain your eyes trying to read something."

"I can leave you two alone." The intern set the copy down on Cecil's desk and backed away, scratching her curly mop of hair.

Cecil looked like a drowning man desperately clinging to a stray piece of driftwood. "Dana--"

"Thank you, Dana." Earl nodded to her and she left the booth, leaving them both alone in its soundproofed walls.

The silence was painful. He had to break it.

"Are you okay?"

"Of course I'm okay." The snap of Cecil's tone made it obvious that he was lying, snatching his glasses from Earl's fingers. "You came all the way down here for that? You don't need to _be here_ , Earl."

"What am I supposed to think, with you rushing out of my place so quickly?"

"I _overslept_ , I'm sorry I didn't have time to wake you and have an entire drawn out conversation about--about--" He made a strangled, growling noise with his throat that articulated an emotion that for anyone else would have been unutterable. "Go _away_."

Earl folded his arms, raising his voice a little in frustration. "Why can't you stop being so stubborn? I just want to talk about what happened last night--"

" _Nothing_ happened last night! --And stop talking so loudly." Cecil bent to rub his temples, features twisted in a grimace. It was obvious he had a massive hangover. Earl suddenly wanted to throw up.

He took a step closer, leaning a hand on the table solely because he didn't think a comforting pat on the shoulder would be well received at that moment. "I wasn't--I wasn't trying to hurt you." That didn't net a response, and he moved in to get a better look at his friend. "I mean I thought we--I thought that was--"

Cecil's eyes were red. "Just _forget about it._ "

It suddenly clicked in a rush of at least minor relief that Cecil had not been blackout drunk, but just was _pretending_ nothing happened. "--Don't say that. I can't forget about it. I've been--god, Cecil--" Perhaps now wasn't the time to declare his love for his estranged, currently enraged friend. "--It wasn't nothing."

"It _was_ nothing." His stubborn insistence was starting to get a little irritating though. "It was a stupid nothing that shouldn't have happened so just forget about it."

"Do you know how long I've been in love with you?" The words shouldn't have come out then, shouldn't have come out ever, shouldn't have been used as weapons to get Cecil to just _shut up and let him talk_ , but there they were. And once they had tumbled out, so too came another awful string of messy words. "Before you left for Europe, even, I--I realized it at graduation. I wanted to say something. I wanted to do something. But I was so terrified of ruining what we had, I kept my mouth shut. I had no idea you could ever return my feelings. That the two of us could be--Cecil, please, all I want to do is figure this out. Maybe this doesn't have to end so badly. Maybe we can salvage what we have. I'm not saying you have to love me back but all I want--all I want is for you to just _talk_ , just talk to me so we can--"

" ** _I don't want to talk to you, Earl_**."

It wasn't the words themselves. It was the cold way they were said, the complete and abject denial before he'd even finished pouring his heart out. And then there was the expression on Cecil's face as he said them, finally looking him in the eye with the most hateful glare he had ever seen.

Earl felt the wind leave his lungs, a soft rush of air that left his chest aching and empty. It took a moment for him to breathe in again, and even then all he could manage was a quiet, hollow, "Oh."

He held his gaze for what to him felt like an eternity, but measured by his wristwatch was more like sixteen seconds. Then Cecil turned back to his station, covering his ears with his headphones and murmuring, dismissive, "I have a show to do."

What else could Earl do? His heart had been torn out and sliced open with a knife like some awful sacrificial ritual from Night Vale in the Roaring Twenties. He picked up the pieces and made his way out of the station.

* * *

 

Steve naturally had a key to Cecil's house. For if he needed to borrow anything, lend anything--drop by to see how his brother-in-law was doing, both for his sake and Abby's peace of mind. It just seemed natural to go inside with a Tupperware container full of scones and wait at the table for him to come back from work.

Perhaps it was a little ambush-y. But one needed to pull dirty tricks with a stubborn man like Cecil Palmer. He came from a family of thick-headed people; at least, that was Steve's experience.

He'd spent all morning making peace with his wife and daughter. He realized now that he should have just been open with them from the start. Give everyone a chance to come to terms with his decision. As a man who did not often make contentious choices, this concept had been lost on him.

It didn't take long for Cecil to come home. Steve heard the rattling of keys, then the pause as the owner realized that the door was already unlocked. He got up from the table to open the door himself.

"--What are you doing here, Steve?" Cecil's eyes were wide, and his voice was dull with surprise. To Steve's immense relief there was no hint of anger in them. Just stunned shock.

He cleared his throat, trying to sound jovial and unconcerned. "I brought scones."

"You brought. Scones."

"--Yeah! I made--I made the ones you like. With the orange zest?" And if it wasn't already obvious that he intended them as a peace offering, that probably made it clear. He pulled back so Cecil could get inside, hands behind his back. A thick wave of tension seemed to roll into the house when Cecil did, but he did his best not to mind it. Sometimes he could be moody.

Especially with how he looked right then, dark circles under his eyes, glasses a little crooked, hair uncombed, a large bandaid on his palm. Steve had caught snippets of the show, and while Cecil was always quick to put on a brave front, try to keep some neutral cheer in his tone, today he'd stumbled on some of his words and very noticeably stuttered over the station's advertisement for Tourniquet.

"You look terrible," Steve added kindly. Cecil muttered something about finishing off the scotch after he'd left.

He seemed lost, adrift, looking between the container and then Steve, and then his shoes and then the container again. Eventually he moved to sit down at the table, hands resting on the wood and Steve just standing there innocently the entire time just…waiting.

To his surprise, Cecil started talking first.       

"Steve I--I'm sorry, I--last night I was just--I--I--um, I shouldn't have--"

Inelegant and stammering and incomprehensible though it was. Steve decided to cut him a break. "--Don't worry. …I mean I was expecting you to be angry. Maybe not _that_ angry but--" No, no, poor choice of words, Cecil was starting to look like a kicked puppy again. "--I mean it's a pretty upsetting thing for me to just announce out of the blue, you know? Who could blame you?"

"Hm."

He hated to see him like that, his normally loquacious brother-in-law just sort of staring at the table like the Tupperware box would grow teeth and swallow him whole if he reached out a hand to it. Steve opted to change the subject. "Try one. They're good."

"I'm not hungry."

"Yes you are." Cecil shot a sudden sharp look his way, but all it did was prove he'd seen right through him. "Go on. I worked all morning on these."

For a moment Steve started to worry that maybe he would starve himself out of pure spite, but then Cecil cracked open the lid of the Tupperware and picked up one of the contents. Steve's scones were a little plain looking, on the outside. He didn't believe in putting on a lot of icing, or decoration, figuring that the natural flavors he put into each one would show people how special they were. Sometimes he wished he had the spontaneity to try more varieties than the few he knew by heart, but Night Vale no longer had the produce resources for that. Still, they were always a hit at PTA meetings, albeit maybe he'd been told they were a little dry sometimes.

Cecil took a bite and chewed, the tightness of his shoulders seeming to droop just a little. It wasn't entirely clear if this was a result of misery or that he was finally starting to relax. He said nothing, eyes staring ahead in a somewhat glazed, distant fashion.

Steve decided to take the initiative this time. "…I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to hurt you by leaving. Any of you. It's because I love you all that I have to do this."

Then, to his surprise, mouth still full of scone, Cecil put his head down and started crying.

"Cecil--" Immediately he was there, an arm around his shoulder and a comforting tone in his voice. "I know. I know it's going to be hard. …This is just what I have to do."

Cecil said something that was probably "I know", but it was incredibly garbled and impossible to be totally sure of that. His radio enunciation was no match for cheeks full of food and lips distorting in a mourning grimace.

Steve rubbed his back, chuckling a little. "--Maybe chew some of that first, huh buddy?"

There was a little bit of chewing. Some swallowing. And then a slightly less impossible to understand, "I ruin everything."

"No. --No! Is this still about last night?" The memory of their fight seemed to make Cecil cry harder, and Steve immediately regretted asking for clarification. Silly him. He'd already forgiven him for it. "--No, Cecil. You were upset. Come on, we all do dumb stuff when we're upset. And you're certainly not the first person to throw a drink at me."

Cecil whined again, more insistent and broken, "I ruined everything."

Steve repeated, more firm, "No. You didn't ruin anything. You and me, we're okay. Okay?"

No reply. Just more sobbing. After a moment Steve sighed and passed his brother-in-law another scone, which was quickly devoured.

A few more minutes ticked by that way, Cecil eventually starting to reach for them himself. As though suddenly self-conscious of the amount he was eating he added, crumbs flying over the table, "I've only had coffee all day."

In spite of himself Steve laughed. "You can have the whole box, then."

"What about Janice and Abby? Don't they want some?"

Steve waved his hand, shaking his head. "Oh they're probably sick of my scones by now. I'm sure they'll be glad to have something else for breakfast."

It wasn't the right thing to say, Cecil leveling a sort of reproachful glower at him. But the gesture was familiar and comforting-- _Don’t put yourself down, Steve_ , it seemed to say.

He was going to miss him.

It was always a fresh realization, it always hurt each time. He winced, emotionally speaking.

Cecil finished eating again and this time didn't grab for any more--admittedly, there wasn't a lot left. Hunger sated, he interlaced his fingers and looked away once more, speaking almost contemplatively. Like he wasn't talking to Steve at all. "I shouldn't have gotten s-so angry." Tears threatened to drip down his face again, they were visible there brimming in Cecil's eyes, but ultimately his hysterics seemed to have died down. "I just…panicked at…losing such a good friend."

"Maybe if I'd talked it over with you first, you wouldn't have needed to panic." There were still glistening trails on Cecil's cheeks, and Steve went to grab a couple tissues to offer him. Instead of using them to clean off his face, though Cecil used them to blow his nose. He hesitated, trying to inject some more cheer into his voice, and said, "I think you should stay with me and Abby and Janice for the weekend."

The topic seemed to take Cecil by surprise, and he sputtered slightly. "Oh I couldn't--I couldn't impose on you like that--I know I've been so-- _been so_ \--lately, and--"

Steve held up his hand, silencing him easily. "Cecil, please. I don't want to…to waste any time that we might still have to spend together as a family. Please say okay?"

He put on his best puppy dog eyes, even though he was pretty sure that all the Palmers were more kitten people. It seemed to do the trick, though, and eventually he heard a warm, if resigned, "...Okay."

The last of the thick, heavy despair seemed to lift from the room, and Steve beamed. "Okay! See you later, brother!"

Cecil wasn't exactly a hugger, and he was sitting down to boot, but Steve pulled him into a grudgingly accepted shoulder scrunch before making his way outside to bound back home. As he closed the door he saw him shake his head, sniff, and snatch another scone from the box.


End file.
